Backwards
by lieselmemingers
Summary: Catnip, you've got a couple of things to learn about having someone's back. A collection of Gale moments. Gale/Katniss, some Katniss/Peeta and Gale/Madge.


_A collection of Gale moments. Gale/Katniss, some Katniss/Peeta and Gale/Madge. Swearing (quite a bit of it), and some sexual references. Nothing too bad, though. The moments aren't in order, and they jump around a little bit but hopefully it's clear enough if you know the books._

* * *

_**Over.**_

It would so happen that the day I've got a twelve year old girl in tow would be the day that wild dogs attack. Catnip stumbles next to me, and I grab a fistful of her collar and drag her along. The growling is closer now.

Teeth, teeth, teeth, blood on teeth, broken bones, half eaten faces…

No, oh, no.

"_Up!_" I hiss through my breath, and Catnip's eyes are ablaze. "Catnip, _up_!"

She's confused, young, frantic, but she's the best goddamn climber I know and I cling to that thought as I hoist her up and fling her towards the highest branch I can manage. She cries out in pain but manages to hold on.

It's too late; there's teeth sinking into my ankle and I reach up for her help, but she's scurrying higher into safety as I try to shake one of the smaller dogs from its grip on my leg. The pain is hot, liquid, merciless, and I'm crying out as I manage to kick the dog off and heave myself up onto the lowest branch.

The dogs growl down below and I climb one more branch up just to be safe, gritting my teeth.

But then there's a tiny little hand in front of my face, and I almost laugh because she's so late, and the sentiment would've been nice a couple of seconds ago before my ankle became mince in my shoes. A cold sweat breaks out on my face, and I grin up at her. She's frowning, scowling, and she retracts her hand, knowing that I don't need her help anymore, and that I can't climb any higher anyhow.

It's all so hilarious, because I came to the woods with what felt like a million lives to protect and came back with one more. How in hell did that work?

"Catnip, you've got a couple of things to learn about having someone's back."

* * *

_**Under.**_

"Mrs Everdeen? Can you hear me?"

Nothing, blank, hollow. Mrs Everdeen's icy blue eyes hold nothing but the wall behind me. She's lost, sick, and hopeless. And I can't stand it anymore. I can hear Prim crying behind me. She's cries a lot, that little blonde kid. I wish her mother could cry. My knees are raw from kneeling in front of the woman for so long on this splintered floor.

"Mrs Everdeen, Katniss is sick, she has the flu, I think. Please, just go and take a look at her. She's got a real fever."

I take a look behind me and Prim's sweet little face is swimming in front of mine, eyes wide and so unlike anyone that lives around here that it almost startles me. She hasn't lost that smell of youth and cleanliness. Prim puts a hand on my shoulder.

And then the kid says; "I'll look at her."

"We need your mom, kiddo."

Prim sniffles and wipes her nose messily on the back of her hand, and says "No, we don't."

The whole situation is just so damn grim that I heave Prim up into my arms because it's probably been so long since the kid's been picked up by someone. Catnip's too small. Her mother's too sick. Time passes slowly for children. Her daddy could've been gone an eternity. Prim fists my shirt in her tiny hands and together we leave the shell that used to be her mother and walk over to see the clammy balls of nerves and fever that I barely recognise as Catnip.

There's a bucket of cold water and a cloth I found in the kitchen, and Prim hops onto the bed and wrings the cloth out. I wonder just how much the little girl learnt, growing up watching her mother work medicinal magic. Catnip shudders, and then sighs in relief as Prim drags the cloth over her forehead. And I just stand there, useless, vigil over something that feels so precious I almost turn away.

The sun's going down, and I need to take the Game to my mother, but Prim's all alone here with her sick thirteen year old sister and a mother that would sit still if it started raining cats and dogs.

"Come on, Prim, hop into bed and try to sleep."

Prim protests, but I realise the importance of keeping this little girl whole and normal. It's imperative that she wakes for school tomorrow after a decent night's sleep. That's what Katniss was trying to do all along. She's not yet strong enough to bare weight on her shoulders. She needs to be looked after.

Prim starts crying again when I settle her down on the cot next to Katniss. I pray that Prim doesn't get sick, but it's been a couple of days and if it was going to happen it would've.

"But, Katniss…"

"I've got her. Don't worry."

I kiss Prim on the forehead and she lets me stroke her cotton silk hair until she falls to sleep. My family will have to manage on the leftovers of yesterday's squirrels. This home is too broken for me to walk away from tonight.

Catnip's eyes open ever so slightly, still in the grip of delirium. She's far away. "Daddy, please, run faster…where did you go…I can't do this by myself…"

"You don't have to, Catnip."

I take her sweaty hand. She's too sick to pull it away.

* * *

_**Below.**_

It smells of death down here. Someone's passing a cigarette around and I can't possibly imagine how it could make the air any worse but somehow it has. Still, I take a puff of it all the same. It loosens the muscles; this time of day is the worst. Still hours to go, but it feels like you've been down here for all eternity. I can't lose my temper. I can't lose my job. Each minute in this fucking place puts food in their stomachs. I'm not going anywhere.

"Hey, Hawthorne! Does your cousin take it up the ass?"

I get three weeks suspension and a formal warning.

* * *

**Forward.**

The _Happy New Year!_s have faded into nothing and the bonfire burns outside the Hob and people laugh, and this could be a different District Twelve. Prim is asleep in Katniss' lap where she sits on an upturned barrel and stares into the fire. Even her mother's here, and her eyes are full rather than hollow. We're through the storm. Katniss has just passed sixteen and she's only got two more reapings until the rest of her life. I only have one. The light dances off her smooth skin and the future is bright. We're going to be fine. I don't realise it until a couple of weeks later, but I love her that night. I look at her and I love her. I'm a little drunk, a little happy, and this year the odds could be in our favour. I let my head fall back against the stone wall and accept a bowlful of stew from Greasy Sae (you're as drunk as Haymitch Abernathy, Gale!).

This year. I'll tell her this year.

* * *

_**Outside.**_

Mr Mellark pauses when he sees me, and then takes the three squirrels I pass him with a slight smile that creases his face (he's grown about twenty years older in the past few weeks).

"Gale," the man greets. I've always liked him. Well, up until last week when those blue Mellark eyes started to seem like the worst thing in Panem.

I think the old baker's been crying, because his pale face is stained above the cheeks and raw. It would be embarrassing had I not seen my father cry countless times before he died. I've never bought all that crap about men not crying. Tears don't help, but they don't hurt either. The Mellark kid cried when the career stabbed him in the leg. That didn't hurt. No, no, I correct myself. It did hurt. He's just a kid, a man, a human being like me.

A human being with his mouth all over Catnip. Katniss. No, Catnip.

"I figured you'd have a couple of extra mouths to feed until the two of them make it home," Mr Mellark says, and I find a loaf of bread pressed into my hands. "Take it?"

Suddenly the offering seems like the worst thing in the world. Suddenly it seems like a peace offering, and the baker is trying to replace Catnip with a loaf of bread. A loaf of bread. _Throw it back in his face, how dare he, what am I, a charity case? _

_Throw a punch and imagine its Peeta._

"Thank you, sir," I say instead.

Food is food. Hunger is hunger. My brothers and sisters are as good as my children. Bread is just bread, charity is just charity, and any hurt to my pride I can walk off like a twisted ankle. (_But that's ridiculous, Gale, you can't walk off a twisted ankle, it just makes it worse!_) Shut up, Catnip.

I hoist the bread under my arm, fix my game bag around my shoulders and walk away.

I miss you, Catnip.

* * *

_**Behind.**_

The clanging of a miner's helmets on the wooden table, the jovial laughter of a hard day's work. My father has bathed and sits with a man so similar in appearance they could be brothers. They laugh raucously, and the wind howls outside. My pyjamas are too short, and my ankles are cold. My mother has gone to bed; she's so heavily pregnant with my next brother that it makes her hard to do anything at all, really. At eight years old, I look forward to the days when I can look like this; a man. A man home from a proper day's work.

"How old is she?"

"She's seven in a few weeks," replies the man I don't know.

"Ah, she'll be grown before you know it. Trust me, I blinked and Gale was as tall as his mother."

I want to listen, but my little brother starts crying in the next room and I don't want my mother to have to get up, because if she has to get up then she'll make that awful noise as though someone's just stabbed her through the heart.

Years pass, and I think more than I really want to about it. I wonder if Mr Everdeen sat at my table that night. I wonder if they were talking about Catnip. For a couple of years after the accident, I wonder if they sit on clouds and have similar discussions. And then I get older and stop wondering that because, damn it, what was I thinking?

It probably wasn't him.

* * *

_**Inside.**_

A part of me has always wondered how the other half lives. Well, I guess they live in silk sheets and pure cotton and brass door handles, like Madge Undersee. I ask if her father's home, and if I should leave, but she shakes her head and relaxes against the pillows, stretching under the covers like a sweet blonde cat, naked and satisfied. There's a bruise blushing on her neck from my teeth.

_Katniss, you mean everything to me, I love you will all my heart, you saved my life. _

_Will you marry me?_

Fuck.

I'll bet they have silk sheets in the Capitol too. I wonder if she'll notice. Probably too busy focusing on her stomach under Mellark's lips and his hands on…

The world spins. I wonder if Madge will be angry if I throw up on her bedclothes.

And then there's a strong hand on my shoulder and she's there, behind me, and I'm so angry because I didn't ask to be held. Don't want to be held either, not like this, not like I'm weak. Madge presses her lips against my ear and I try to bat her away. She holds on. I hope to God that she knew what she was doing; she felt like she could say no as I'd handed her the strawberries and followed with a kiss that had her dragging me into the huge, empty house. I hope this wasn't her first time. Things like that shouldn't be wasted on me. I know Katniss used to come here. I know she would sit with Madge. I wonder if she's seen the sheets. Beautiful. I've never seen silk in real life before, let alone felt it against my skin.

"She must've had a good reason," Madge tries.

Whatever the reason, whatever the condolences; Catnip is going to marry Peeta Mellark, and there's nothing I can do about it.

"I guess she must've."

Maybe silk sheets were never that bad. Maybe I've been wrong about Madge Undersee. Maybe I've been wrong about so many things. It's too late to say sorry. It's too late to say a lot of things.

_I don't ever want to marry. _

_Why not, Catnip? _

_I just don't. _

So I push the Mayor's daughter back into the pillows and I don't say anything.

* * *

_**Above.**_

Somehow it's come down to me and Peeta Mellark. It's late afternoon and Catnip has scurried off to shoot. I'm teaching Peeta how to set snares. He just looks so goddamn wholesome in the dirt, his blonde hair clean and combed. If he had any scars, they've been polished off by the Capitol's army of beauty slaves. So different to the kid that lay half dead in Katniss' arms a couple of months ago. Too young to die, even if I hate him. But still, he will die. He means to die.

And that's when it happens; he slips on a moss-covered rock and lands hard on his ass.

And I realise; on the ground in front of me is Catnip's only hope. And I can't hate that. I can't even dislike it. I can't do anything but thank Peeta Mellark from the bottom of my heart for loving the girl that I love.

I hold out my hand to help him up and he takes it.

_You've got a couple of things to learn about having someone's back._

I can do this for her.

* * *

_Please leave a review!_


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